


NFWMB

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Heliotrope [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Author is a madwoman, BAMF Alec Lightwood, BAMF Magnus Bane, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, M/M, Magical Bond, POV Alec Lightwood, Protective Alec Lightwood, don't ask just read it, mentions of panic attacks/ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24419386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: Alec pressed his eyes closed, only then realizing how tired they were, "I miss home."
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Andrew Underhill, Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood, Jace WAyland & Alec Lightwood (mentioned), Magnus Bane & Isabelle Lightwood, Magnus Bane & Maryse Lightwood (mentioned), Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Maryse Lightwood & Alec Lightwood (mentioned), Simon Lewis/Isabelle Lightwood
Series: Heliotrope [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692241
Comments: 9
Kudos: 119





	NFWMB

**Author's Note:**

> Was I supposed to be done with this? Yes, yes I was.

It was slow going to get them home. 

Alec Lightwood-Bane did his level best not to limp as he supported Magnus into the loft. He was all-too-aware that his husband would be very vocally displeased that he'd prioritized getting his exhausted warlock home over getting himself healed when the iratzes he'd already activated didn't quite cut it. He was reasonably certain that his knee was just sore, not broken, and as he half-carried Magnus through their darkened lair, the pain of it seemed to ease with the ease that came from finally being safe at home. 

Magnus was barely conscious, and the only reason Isabelle had allowed them out of the Institute was because they didn't have enough beds as it was for the other exhausted warlocks and injured Nephilim. Catarina had called in other warlocks she'd met over the years with the same lean towards healing that she had, and when they'd left, those reinforcements had been flagging, too. The danger was gone and would not be coming back, but the toll it was taking was dangerously steep. 

"We need to shower." Magnus groaned, and Alec realized that the strange twitching he was seeing in the corner of his eye was Magnus trying to summon his magic to clean them up, and getting nothing. 

"Okay, Magnus. We'll shower and then we'll get in bed. Think you can stay awake long enough for me to get some food in you, too?" Alec asked, taking even more of Magnus's weight as he tripped at the threshold of their bedroom. 

Magnus hummed, but it wasn't affirmative or negative, and Alec bit back a laugh. 

"I'd ask if you'd rather a bath, but if I put us down in the water, I don't think we'll be getting back out until morning." 

"Morning?" Alec giggled at Magnus's incredulity, and when Magnus obediently leaned against the counter, Alec made quick work of his own clothes and started the shower, turning to Magnus to find him fumbling with his own buttons. 

"I got it, Mags." Alec gave Magnus's hands a gentle squeeze as he removed them from his buttons, and Magnus sighed, squinting up at him as Alec made quick work of his vest and shirt, stealing kisses to Magnus's warm throat as he stripped him. 

Magnus shuddered into him, hands clinging to Alec's back and a high sound of distress edging out of his throat. 

"I'm here. I'm whole. You saved us." Alec murmured, and Magnus urged Alec into a kiss, hands no less desperate, but simultaneously so gentle that it caught at the back of Alec's throat. Alec could only move from the touch of them to get Magnus's shoes and socks, then worked to strip off his pants, making it as quick a job as he could so that he could fold himself back into Magnus's arms and support his weight once more. "C'mon. I'll wash the ash from your hair first. Think you can stay awake if I give you a show?" 

Magnus grumbled, "Why do you only offer to put on a show for me in the shower when you need me to remain conscious?" 

"Because I'm banking on you being too tired or concussed to clearly remember it tomorrow, therefore alleviating some of the embarrassment." 

"Alexander," Magnus growled now, and Alec looked at his husband, lips pursed and brows raised, "when the fuck have I ever given you the impression that you have literally anything to be embarrassed about, particularly when you're naked?" 

Alec laughed, shaking his head fondly as they made it under the rush of pleasantly warm water. Not quite the scalding Alec tended towards; Alec knew that the rift that the warlocks had had to seal had been spewing enough fire and heat that it wouldn't be pleasant for Magnus to try to suffer through Alec's predilection for hot showers. Magnus shuddered into Alec again, a tiny moan sneaking from his throat as Alec's fingers scrubbed slowly at the fuzz on the back of Magnus's skull, working slowly down his neck, and Alec knew he had enough of a hold on Magnus with that to reach his other hand for the shampoo; thankful that Magnus had finally capitulated on the bottle he used to decant his shampoo into. The heavy crystal was still there, of course, but Magnus had taken to also putting a small amount in a sturdy bottle with a pump-top, better for the tired fumblings that usually happened when Alec was called to work any time before nine. 

"Love you." Magnus murmured as Alec began to work the shampoo into suds through Magnus's hair. The ash that had clung there, casting Magnus nearly grey, turned the foam into a storm-cloud, and Alec breathed deep the scent of sandalwood, where before Magnus had largely smelled of the fire and panic of trying to close the rift.

"I love you, too, Magnus." Alec answered, smiling softly when Magnus pressed a kiss to the joint of his shoulder, laying his head down on Alec's collarbone. With militant efficiency, Alec let himself quickly scrub over Magnus's skin as well, rubbing away the memory of the sweat that had cooled enough to dry. Magnus let out a hum of thanks, and Alec helped him sit on the small shower seat at the end of the stall; thankful all over again that Magnus had redone his bathroom the second time Alec and he had accidentally ripped the shower curtain from the wall while indulging in a shower together. Now, the walk-in vestibule was sturdy stone; cool to the skin whenever one of them backed the other against it, but far more structurally sound than trying to find purchase on a piece of fabric. 

Alec did not give much of a show, though he was necessarily more thorough with himself than he had been in washing Magnus: ichor had leeched through his clothes in places, and blood had crusted in others. When Alec looked over to his husband, he found something unnameable in Magnus's eyes, and it sent a twist through Alec's heart. 

"Hey," Alec murmured, flicking his hands to indicate that Magnus should take him in, proud when only a small twist went through his heart that his scars were on display with everything else, "see? Here, and whole." 

Magnus couldn't summon a smile, and Alec shut the water off, going forward and kneeling, ignoring the shriek of protest from his knee as he did. "I was so close to losing you." Magnus breathed, pressing his eyes closed. 

"You scared me." Alec admitted, and Magnus's eyes snapped open, meeting his. "When Abaddon came through demanding you, Magnus..." Alec's breath caught, his eyes going distant. "I knew you couldn't protect yourself and close the rift: knew that the others wouldn't be able to close the rift without you. I'm sorry I scared you, in getting her to focus on me...it was the only thing I could think of that might work." 

Magnus let out a slip of breath too close to a sob, and Alec got them both to their feet and rough-dried, tucking Magnus securely into bed before sliding in beside him and holding him tight. "You're dripping with my magic...I should have known that--" 

"No. Me dripping with your magic is what saved me, Magnus. The protections you've put in place; all of it. I might have gotten rattled, my love, but I'm here, safe, because of the magic you've wrapped me in." 

Magnus's lashes were drooping, the tickle of them against Alec's skin bringing the smallest smile to the Shadowhunter's mouth. "You killed a Prince of Hell." Magnus mumbled, more than half-asleep, still in awe. 

Alec knew that the depth of the magic he could feel had changed, but he had the sneaking suspicion that Magnus couldn't feel it, yet: had exhausted himself too far to realize that the powers of the Prince of Hell had properly been absorbed into the powers that Alec shared with his husband. Alec was pretty sure that the only reason they'd managed to get the rift closed was because Alec had killed Abaddon and had inherited use of those powers in the killing. Sharing powers with Magnus was categorically different to how it had felt to be the one to absorb those powers: Magnus's magic was like low-level static, tickling and playful, whereas Abaddon's had felt so desperately cold and empty that Alec had thought for a second he'd been hit somehow, hard enough that death was coming on its swiftest wings. 

Magnus's exhaustion had deadened the sensations of the magic within Alec to the point where he felt like he was missing a limb. It had been easy, to get used to feeling the ocean of power that Magnus had long been alone in trying to hold back. The sensation of that power was the same sensation that Magnus kissed into his skin, every time he layered another protection into place. It was the sensation of the loft silently taking care of Alec. As the fatigue began to pull hard enough for Alec to be falling asleep, Alec could only hope that when he woke, the new magic he'd added to their ocean would be made to feel like the old. 

Stroking his thumb over the frangipani behind Magnus's ear, Alec let out a slow breath, his other hand covering the phoenix low on Magnus's ribs just to measure the rise and fall of breath beneath. 

~

Alec often found himself wishing he could get more tattoos. His deal with the Clave, to keep his runes without further protest in exchange for a chance to work with the Downworld to rewrite the Accords, meant that largely he couldn't cover his skin with the beauty Magnus created. For the first year of marriage, catching sight of the myrtle on his left hand had sent a frisson of pleasure through him; still did, when times were bad enough. And Alec had to make due with that, for now at least.

The truth was, Alec missed the simplicity of the life he'd built outside the Shadow World: he missed going into Adaline's shop and the scent of the flowers--the scent of _green_ \--steadying him. He missed the days when Magnus would come in and steal him away for lunches. Magnus had always told him he was meant to be a leader, but there was a part of Alec that wished he hadn't been meant to: that he could have chosen to stay in that little flower shop that had brought him so much of the happiness he'd thought he'd never have. 

"Alexander?" Magnus asked softly, a warm palm settling over Alec's lower back, and Alec turned to his husband, trying to blink himself out of the creeping ennui of wanting to _go home_ , even though home wasn't that flower shop anymore. 

"Sorry." Alec murmured, and Magnus's eyes flicked around the room, the cocktail party rankling at Magnus visibly. "You okay?" 

"Fine, darling." Magnus drew even closer, and Alec was hit with the need to be holding onto Magnus in some way. "How much trouble do you think we'd be in if we ghosted our own party?" 

Alec's brows rose, but a smile began to tug at his lips. "Considering it's only for us in name...do we care how much trouble we'd be in?" 

Magnus chuckled, his hand sliding from Alec's lower back to meet Alec's, and they made a path skirting around the clumps of Clave members to find a spot they could open a portal in and not be immediately caught. 

"Seriously, hermano? Ditching on your own party?" Isabelle scolded when they found a likely spot, not noticing that it was occupied. She and Simon were sitting together, Isabelle holding Simon's hand, and Alec knew that it was because the presence of a vampire at a Clave party in Alicante was stirring up old prejudices enough that they'd likely been made very visible. 

"We both know I'm not much for crowds, Izzy." Alec admitted in a tight voice, and Isabelle tensed, her eyes going wide. Magnus looked over at him, concern drawing heavy over his brow. Alec didn't think that he was truly in immediate danger of having a panic attack. He had Magnus's hand in his, and the magic was easing under his skin in the same gentle way it always did, calming and comfortable. When they'd made the bond with the frangipanis, Alec hadn't expected that Magnus's magic, which already took care of him and eased him as much as it was able, even when Magnus wasn't there to wield it, would work to calm a lot of his stressors. 

Alec had surprised himself with how steady he'd been the morning after the fight with Abaddon: Hadn't felt in danger of overwhelm even as the magic had slowly regained strength and returned. Alec put a very large part of that down to spending the days after Abaddon happily ensconced alone with Magnus: Isabelle and Maryse making it absolutely clear to the Clave that had been clamouring to see them that that would not be happening until Magnus was back to full strength and they'd both had a chance to heal. 

"Magnus, take care of my brother. I'll head off any questions at the pass." Isabelle delegated, and Simon and Magnus shared a smile. 

"Of course, Miss Lightwood." Magnus answered formally, and Isabelle's cheeks went red, her nose wrinkling in apology. 

"Thanks, Izzy." Alec added. Magnus waved a portal open to the loft, the wards settling around them both like warm blankets. 

"Really, Alec, are you okay?" 

Alec shrugged, "Better now. I wasn't in danger of an attack..." 

Magnus grinned, a hint of pride in the expression, "But you'd spent as much time as you could in a situation you didn't want to be in?" 

Alec felt his cheeks heat, and he ducked his gaze, but agreed, "Duty be damned." 

Magnus drew in, kissing Alec long and slow, something of a reward for having come so far as to be able to draw the boundary he'd drawn in leaving when Magnus gave him the opportunity to. 

Alec was well-aware that Magnus worried about him, far more than he ought to; and Alec had been doing everything he could think of to alleviate that worry. 

"I love you," Magnus murmured, and it sent a small thrill through Alec, to hear the words, no matter how many times Magnus had already said them. 

"I love you, too." Alec replied, pulling Magnus in to drape against his front. Magnus pivoted, the two of them falling easily onto the couch, Alec careful not to land on Magnus disastrously. Alec knew that Magnus delighted in letting Alec lay on top of him this way: and knew that there was something in Alec that went lax at having his body undeniably between Magnus and anything that could possibly come for them. As he burrowed his face in Magnus's neck, breathing him in deep, Alec appreciated all over again the drawing ease of knowing that, even for as broken as he'd become, Alec had been given the gift of Magnus easily being able to trust Alec to protect him. 

They had landed in such a way that Magnus's legs easily fit around Alec, the cradle of his hips a comfort as Magnus wrapped Alec up with relish at having Alec pressed like this against him. Magnus's fingers slid into Alec hair, and Alec had been meaning for over a week to go get a haircut, but when the gentle tug of Magnus's fingers pulled deliciously at the tension Alec hadn't realized was riding his scalp, Alec realized just what had made him refrain. 

"I'm sorry...I know that warlock tradition--" 

"Warlocks have a party when they become High Warlock, but it's always attended by the warlocks in the place they've become High Warlock of. I didn't want to be there any more than you did." Magnus murmured. 

"I'm sorry." 

Alec grunted as Magnus poked him in the side, angling for a particularly ticklish spot. "You have nothing to do with the prejudices of the past, my darling. You've done the most to undo those prejudices than anyone else I've ever met." Magnus remonstrated, bringing both hands into Alec's hair, rubbing strong fingers against his temples and easing a building headache that Alec hadn't realized he was working himself into. "Is this because you shirked duty, or is there a different monkey on your back?"

Alec pressed his eyes closed, only then realizing how tired they were, "I miss home." 

Magnus went minutely tense for only a half-second before relaxing, "So do I, Alexander." He admitted softly, "I miss drawing your flowers." 

Alec laughed, the painful relief of being understood by the man in his arms something Alec expected to never get over. 

"It's important work that you're doing now, my darling Alexander...and there's no one better than you to be doing it. But I wish that that weren't case, particularly if you really don't want to be doing it." 

"I wish I didn't have to be doing it." Alec admitted. "I hate, so much, all that you and your people have been put through, Magnus. And I want to make it better." 

"Hey," Magnus coaxed, and when Alec met his gaze, an ember of pleasure lodged in his chest to see Magnus's glamour down; something that only ever happened for Alec, "you don't have to make it better for everyone, Alexander. You have done so much already that even if you retired here and now, you'd be hailed in the Downworld as a hero. You can put this burden down, Alec. The Downworlders are not your responsibility." 

Alec licked his lips, "I know...your voice in my head keeps telling me that." Magnus grinned, stroking the backs of his fingers over Alec's cheek, "But...You are my responsibility, Magnus. I have to do my bit to keep you safe, to bring you happiness...I can't protect you like you protect me. But I can make sure that the world changes--changes enough that you won't ever have to hide who you are again, I hope." 

Magnus traced his fingertips over Alec's lips, a distant look in his eyes, "I won't ask you to stop. But I will tell you that you don't need to do this, Alec. I love that you will; that you are my stubborn husband and you'll change the world just from the strength of your stubbornness. But please don't spend your life unhappy on my account." 

"Magnus, if I get to come home to you, I won't be spending my life unhappy. But I understand what you're saying." 

"Where does this leave us?" 

Alec swallowed, thinking hard, "Five years. We give saving the world five years...then we decide if there's another path, and what that other path is, that will make us happy. If you want to remain High Warlock of Alicante--or if you want to move on somewhere else...then we'll do that." 

"New York is always going to be home, though, isn't it?" Magnus asked, looking around the loft. 

"For me, without question." Alec answered, "But if you have another home you haven't introduced me to yet, I'd really like to see it." 

"No, New York is pretty much it for me, too." Magnus told him softly. "I met the love of my immortal life there, after all. A place that can boast that can't be beaten." 

Alec drew in a small breath, leaning up to kiss Magnus softly. 

"There's something that I think we can do to make Alicante feel a little more like home, too." 

"Hm?" 

With both of them now working in Alicante, they had been given an apartment that Alec had approached with all the excitement of a death sentence. "I think...I think I might be able to mirror the loft into Alicante. I have to talk to the Seelies for some guidance on how to make mirror magic like that, but it would be the same in both places." 

"Really?" Alec's voice tinged with elation. 

Magnus laughed, "Yes. Does that make you feel better about moving?" 

Alec sighed, "More than a little." He admitted. "Home is where you are, but...the loft has taken care of me. It feels like an echo of you." 

Magnus kissed the deflect rune on Alec's neck, settling them back into each other. That Magnus had something of a taste for kissing and marking the rune on Alec's neck, Alec had come to think as a behavioural therapy technique to associate the runes Alec vehemently wanted gone with the press of Magnus's mouth. Magnus paid attention to Alec's other runes; paid attention to the frangipani behind Alec's ear--but the deflect seemed to be his favourite. 

"Do you think..." Alec began, and took a steadying breath, "do you think the Clave will agree to letting me properly retire in five years? I...I want more tattoos. But I know they'll protest if I get tattoos while I'm supposed to be ready for more runes." 

The anger that snapped through Magnus sent the magic buzzing between them, but Magnus was far too practiced at his control to let even a spark fly free. "You killed a Greater Demon. I killed another, and destroyed the Hell dimension he ruled. It might just be your sister's swagger rubbing off on me, but I think even if the Clave does kick up a fuss about allowing me to draw all the pretty pictures you want onto your own damn skin, we'll be more than able to take them." 

Alec laughed in whispers, licking into Magnus's mouth. "I can't believe I was lucky enough to find you." 

Magnus nuzzled into Alec's palm where it rested against his cheek. "Oh, but if I remember correctly, I'm the one that found you." 

"Arguing with Isabelle about living in the back of the Lion." 

Magnus stroked over Alec's cheek, his gaze going soft and warm. "If there was one thing I regret, it's that I wasn't with you soon enough to have protected you." 

"Magnus, even if you had been...I was closed down. I would have loved you, but I never would have let you get near me." 

Alec knew that he and his family unilaterally didn't talk about the life Alec had led before he'd nearly been murdered, but he also knew that Magnus had gotten a shape of it in his mind. 

Swallowing, Alec wondered if he could properly put to words the grey stretch of days that had been his life before that bleak night; then the utter darkness afterwards, before he'd started to find his steady. But thinking of the days when he'd started to find his steady, Alec found himself talking, "I used to see you...walking to the shop. Before you ever came in. After the...after that night, I was in a lot of pain. Not just emotionally, but...it physically hurt, the grief and the weight of it. Of losing the future I'd given up so much to try to reach." 

Magnus's palm was gentle on Alec's jaw, his fingertips a caress resting on his cheek. He didn't give voice the assurance that Alec didn't need to tell him this; didn't say a word as he just gazed at Alec, steady. 

"I saw you walking to the shop...it had been raining, and the temperature had dropped so everything was slick. You were carrying a pastry box...probably a bribe for Dot for something. There was an older woman out...Mrs. Dawson, she was a regular at the shop. She slipped as you were passing her, and you just...caught her. Set her on her feet again. You offered her one of the pastries. You were kind. Kind enough that she got this look in her eyes when she came into the shop once you'd continued on your way. I think she planted the idea in Adaline's head that I had a crush on you then." 

Magnus's breath stuttered on a laugh, "It was cherry-cheese danish, special made because Dot had broken up with her flavour of the week. I never properly met Mrs. Dawson...but it sounds like I would have liked her." 

"You would have. She liked daffodils--narcissus. She was raised a Protestant, she said, and it had taken her years to find something to be selfish about, and she used those flowers as a reminder."

"Am I to take it that daffodils mean selfishness?" 

"Yes. Among other things, but yes." Alec hummed, "I got to see you every once in a while, walking to or from the shop. If there's anything I'm ashamed of, it's how glad I am that you wanted to hide your powers badly enough that you never portalled." 

"I would tease you about having a crush on me long before I stumbled into the shop, but I get the sense that there is more to the story than this. Tell me, my angel." 

Alec took a slow breath, "Before...I refused to let anyone near me, to let anyone know--know that I was gay. I cut off part of the parabatai bond with Jace because I couldn't risk anyone finding out; knew that coming out as gay would be a blow to the family name, and if I wanted to change things, I needed to be able to trade on that name. Mom and...and my father were already looking for a suitable bride to march me down the aisle to, even before that night. I think the only reason I managed to escape that was because of how shamefaced they viewed the whole thing: my deposition from acting Institute Head, then the near-miss...and refusing to stay in the Institute, refusing to go right back out hunting. I don't think she meant to tell Izzy, but Izzy found out that Mom had been lied to, about how badly I was hurt that night. And...because Jace killed the bastard...because we had chosen to take him in, it was a mark against the family name that Jace had acted as he did.

"When Izzy brought me to Adaline's doorstep, I was in a fog. I think she wanted to call me back to when we were kids, before I realized how deeply against the grain my dreams ran. I lived in the back of the shop because I couldn't live near anyone else: the--the panic attacks were worse. The nightmares. Adaline wanted me to have that bedroom in her place then, but I couldn't bear to let her hear me screaming in the night. Couldn't bear to let anyone see..." 

Magnus hushed Alec gently, and Alec clung to him, but fought the words out anyway, "Then I saw you, helping an old lady keep her balance in the rain. Rich colours and sunny smiles. And a little more colour came back. A little less fog. When you stumbled into the shop that day...I could feel you. Your magic has always been buzzing in the air around you. It felt like being in a rainstorm of static. And I loved you then, because it was the first time I felt safe."

Magnus exhaled shakily against Alec's collarbone, his hand curved around the back of Alec's neck, arms tight around him. "I don't know when I fell in love with you, Alexander. I was too scared to truthfully tell you it was that day for me, too, and you know that well." Alec hummed, and Magnus tugged firm fingers through Alec's hair, the sound morphing into a purr at the touch. "But I think my magic always loved you. The consult was rough. I was barely keeping control because of the anguish. And then I walked into your argument with Izzy...and it settled under my skin like I'd put it all into a grounding wire." 

Alec sighed softly, the gentle petting of Magnus's hand over his back relaxing him far enough that he was reasonably sure that he'd fall asleep here on top of Magnus if given half the chance. He didn't let himself, though, "We should go to bed. You'll be grumpy for a week if we fall asleep here and you get a crick in your neck." 

Magnus laughed, poking a ticklish spot between Alec's ribs as Alec reluctantly drew away from the easy sprawl on top of his husband. 

Alec grinned in return, ducking back in for a leisurely kiss, "You are my favourite surprise." 

~

"Alexander Lightwood, how da--" 

"Lightwood-Bane." Alec snarled the correction, and his rage sent three lightbulbs exploding in their sockets with the crackle of Magnus's magic. "And I dare because you have threatened my family, as convenient as it would be for you to forget that." 

In his periphery, Alec could sense Andrew Underhill drawing himself to his full height, imposing as a guardian angel on Alec's shoulder, glaring Consul Harrow down. "You will not speak to me--" 

"I think, Consul Harrow, that he can and he will." Underhill replied calmly, "You forget...his authority goes past yours when it comes to matters of Downworld politics." 

"No better than a Downworlder himself." 

All at once, the air in the Consul's office cooled as if everything within it had suddenly turned to ice; all background noise of electricity, of city life below; hell, even the sounds of the offices beyond died. Alec felt the steadiness settle over him like a shroud, the breath before letting an arrow fly. "You put my husband in a warzone, and then ordered supposed allies to try to kill him, Consul Rafe Harrow. My husband, whose life is bound to mine, making this an attempt on my own life as well. Did you really think, knowing that I slaughtered a Greater Demon to protect that man, that I would not have him protected now?" Alec let the sparks of Magnus's magic convulse on his fingertips; too agitated under the gale of his rage for its usual happy dance. "You're very right, I'm no better than a Downworlder. Where you err is in thinking that you or any other Nephilim are better than a Downworlder, Harrow. You threatened the life of my husband. By rights, I should get to kill you for that. But you also threatened the life of the High Warlock of Alicante. And you know as well as I that the warlocks here love their leader, nearly as much as I do. So...Will you come quietly, and admit who else you've infected with the thought that Nephilim blood is somehow worth more to the world than any other...or, shall I portal you into city square, where you can try to run and hide from the wrath of the warlocks of this city, and leave me to sit back and watch you get torn limb from screaming limb?" 

"You might hold sway--" 

"Consul Harrow, you forget that the Messrs. Lightwood-Bane have been teaching at the Institute here as well as New York. The main reason your plot on Magnus's life failed was because one of the men you tried to gang-press into the job is more loyal to them than he is to you, and Mr. Lightwood-Bane has full sanction in wartime footing to decide without the rest of the Clave what punishment should be for a war-crime involving one of our Downworld allies." The cold efficiency of Underhill's voice pulled at a dark, amused part of Alec. Through the bond, he could feel Magnus in the thick of the battle raging in Rio; a political revolution meeting with a violent faction of Downworlders against equally rabid Shadowhunters in the local Institute that Harrow himself used to run, and thousands of innocent Downworlders caught in the melee with something having been put in place to allow magic users to enter the boundaries of the city, but trap them there once they'd passed through. 

Alec wanted nothing more than to join the fray with his husband, but Magnus had made it damn clear that if he caught Alec in Rio, he'd skin him. Magnus had needed him on the outside of the city limits to help search for ways to break whatever had been put on the land to keep everyone there. It was a disappointment, that Magnus had also, ultimately, needed Alec outside the bounds of the city in order to deal with this problem as well. "Choose, Harrow." Underhill rumbled. 

Twenty hours of interrogations later, Alec portalled to the very edge of the cage trapping anything magical in Rio inside its bounds, his bow in his hand without even the conscious thought, and an arrow neatly put through the throat of the man bearing down on Magnus and the Downworlders he was protecting on the other side. 

The ocean of power felt raw between them; Alec knew that Magnus had been running himself too far ragged to be able to continue to wield it, but the magic itself was not exhausted. Casting his gaze over the line that would have been invisible just two hours before, Alec grit his teeth then met Magnus's weary and thankful gaze. "I still don't understand how the hell you portal like that." Magnus told him, voice high and tired. 

Alec huffed a laugh. "You're going to hate trying to puzzle this one out." 

Alec was very good at repressing and denying his emotions; at burying things deep enough that sometimes even he could forget they were there. Alec had let only a sliver of his rage show before, and now he summoned the whole beast to the fore; watching his husband trapped on the other side of a wall that could only be brought down by pure angelic power. Alec let the anger and the urge to protect flood him, and he'd only done this once before, when he was fighting Abaddon, but he could remember the rhythm of the Nephilim blood in his veins and it came screaming forth, amplified by a thousand under the onslaught of the three months that Alec had been without Magnus. 

The spark of Magnus's magic in his hands was slowly overcome with a golden holy fire that Magnus flinched and shielded his eyes from, the flames so bright even Alec couldn't look at them. In that moment, Alec felt as if wings were ripping from his back; as if every human part of him was being burned alive. But Alec held back the power of two fallen angels and a Hell dimension; it was pure instinct, what he was doing to try to turn that magic back into angelic power, and he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there would be a consequence that he might not be willing to pay for it...

But it was Magnus. 

There was no other qualifier than that to be had. It was just Magnus. Even if they'd never met; even if they'd turned enemies, or simply friends...Magnus stood on the other side of a wall, and Alec had the power to bring down that wall, if he could summon the will. 

Cracks grinding into the wall sent the other warlocks stumbling back for fear at the sound, but Magnus didn't budge, still half-shielding his eyes from the light overtaking his husband. "Alexander, I love you! Stay with me!" 

The wall broke apart at around the same moment that Alec's mind went hazy with the fatigue and pain of the fire, and all at once, the flame stopped. Alec managed to stay numbly there for only the moment more it took for Magnus to stride to him, and then he let out his breath and crumpled. 

"Stay with me! Alec, stay with me!" 

~

There was a finger tracing the frangipani behind Alec's ear. 

He wasn't dead, then. That was good. 

"There you are." Magnus cooed, and the finger was replaced with lips. 

"Where was I?" 

"I don't know, but it was all your mother, brother, and sister could do not to let me follow you." 

"Jace plopped baby Lexi into your lap, didn't he?" Alec asked, nearly laughing. He felt light as Magnus's hand traveled over his shoulder and down his arm, falling warmly into Alec's grip. "How is my goddaughter?" 

"Hell on wheels." Magnus sighed. 

Alec could feel Magnus now, though he couldn't feel much else; the fatigue and anxiety and liminal sorrow from his husband just a toe dipped in the gale of everything else Alec knew he ought to be able to feel. "And how is my husband?" 

Alec pried his eyes finally open, and the sight of Magnus, unshaven and visibly worn-through had him using the grip of his hand to tug Magnus into bed on top of him. It was an infirmary bed, barely big enough for Alec's height, but Magnus didn't put up too much protest before collapsing on top of him, the fear finally releasing its crushing grip from his heart and lungs, and the pain that left behind sending tears falling into Alec's hospital gown. 

It was only when Alec moved his arm that he noticed, finally, that there were no runes adorning it, only the myrtle on his hand to match Magnus's. Alec quickly checked the other arm, eyes going wide, and Magnus let out a long, wet breath. "They're gone. We didn't know what you did--You are an absolute asshole for teasing me that I was going to hate trying to figure this out, Alexander. You weren't breathing. I could feel you dying--" 

Alec swallowed heavily, "Please tell me doing what I did didn't...didn't hurt you, didn't hurt the magic?" 

"You can't feel it?" Magnus asked worriedly. 

"I'm too tired to feel much of anything at the moment. I feel like I should be in quite a lot of pain, too, but that hasn't hit yet." Magnus flinched like he was going to get off Alec immediately, but Alec held him fast. "Answer." 

"No. I...I don't know what you did. Your heart stopped by the time the wall came down and I could cross over to you. I caught you. Laid you down. We--another of the warlocks and I tried to perform CPR, we were both so tired, and you were still giving off sparks. We didn't want to use magic on you, in case..." Alec wove his fingers in Magnus's hair and tugged gently--something that Magnus did sometimes, when Alec was getting lost, "you only came back to me when I touched you, skin to skin. I was sobbing, I couldn't do mouth-to-mouth--" 

"You let someone else give me the kiss of life? No wonder my mouth feels wrong." Alec prodded teasingly, and Magnus pinched his flank without bothering to remove his head from Alec's chest. 

"You might have some bruising on your chest...I got a little overzealous trying to drag you back from the dead." 

"Magnus," Alec cupped his palm over the back of Magnus's skull, the easy fit of them together forever one of Alec's favourite things, "it's okay. Let it come. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. Even if Death wanted to, I couldn't be taken from you." 

Magnus's breath caught on the closest thing Alec was about to get to a laugh, but was closer to a sob. 

"I mean it. Even if we hadn't been warned in time, and they got lucky...I wouldn't have lost you, either." Alec grinned slightly, then admitted, "That didn't in any way impede me from acting like it would have and inflicting the due vengeance on Harrow's hide, of course, but I'm sure, now, that even if someone had gotten lucky enough to take you out, the bond would not have let you stay out for long. Not with me here to pull you back." 

"What did you do?" Magnus asked, resigned but not resentful for it. 

"You keep telling me I'm stubborn enough that I could transmute lead to gold by glaring at it," Magnus laughed more truly, the sound punched even for how welcome it was, "so I forced the magic I was using to go back to being angelic while I was wielding it." 

Magnus let out a sigh of a breath, "Suddenly I have a headache." 

Alec chuckled. "I felt you pull me back, I think. Before the pain came back, and I just went to sleep instead of..."

"Being dead." Magnus said, the words coloured with the ache that Magnus had been sitting with for days, at the threat that Alec would not wake. 

"How long have I been out?" Alec asked finally. 

"Nine days." 

Alec sighed, "Will you sleep in my arms?" 

"I refuse to sleep anywhere else. I managed for three fucking months to get by without you." 

"Liar." Alec accused easily, "You haven't slept properly in ages, and I'll bet if I go ask some of your refugees, they'll tell me they only ever saw you sleep when you were knocked unconscious." 

The tears were slow to come, but Magnus did finally do as Alec had told him and let them go. They were pressed together in the bed, as close as they could get, but it still wasn't close enough, and Alec ached as Magnus was swamped with the anger and the fear and the rage and desperation. It became an acrid taste at the back of Alec's throat, a clench in his chest like a panic attack, and Alec found himself crying, too. 

He didn't try to hush or soothe Magnus; just held him, and as they cried, Alec became slowly aware of himself more and more. His back ached as if it'd been flayed open; and he did feel slightly like his every breath should rattle with how badly his ribs hurt. The magic rushed over him like raindrops of static, falling from every direction, and as it settled under his skin once again, Alec sighed in relief that he hadn't lost it, or caused Magnus to lose it, in having done what he did. 

"I should call in Catarina and the healers." Magnus murmured, voice thick. Alec flicked his fingers, and a tissue appeared in a rush of sparks, the magic no less eager for Alec to use it, though it did feel somehow...deeper. More connected to him, not that he would have thought that possible. 

"You told me you'd sleep." Alec remonstrated gently. 

"As much as I adore you being so foolheaded as to think I'm the priority, I need to remind you that your mother and sister are terrifying, and have been as worried as I was." 

Alec let out a groan that would not have been out of place in a zombie movie, and Magnus burst into damp laughter, but didn't move. 

~

The burn scars on Alec's back resembled wings, according to Magnus, and it became a ritual for Magnus to kiss his way down them every chance he could steal the time. Those scars, Alec didn't mind so much; couldn't help but see them as a signal of just how far he'd go for Magnus. 

The wound had become scar tissue before they'd even begun checking him over for external injury, and when Alec caught Magnus going distant at the sight of them, he used it as an excuse to pull Magnus in for as long a make-out session as they could get. 

For a month after the events in Rio, Alec had not been allowed to return to his duties as liaison between the Clave and the Downworld; the Clave under the assumption, as they all had been in one way or another, that the disappearance of Alec's runes had been some kind of angelic sign, that he was no longer meant to be a Shadowhunter. It was only when Izzy contracted a fever, bourn half of a Seelie curse and half of ichor laced with a contact poison, that any of them realized that Alec's runes were, actually, still there, just no longer on the surface of his skin. When Alec had caught Izzy from her dead faint, lowering them both to the ground so that he could hold onto her while Maryse ran to get a healer, the Shadowhunters of the New York Institute had been more than a little in awe when Alec picked up his sister's stele to activate an iratze, and his own runes flared golden beneath his skin with the touch of his hand to the instrument. 

Once they'd figured out that Alec's Nephilim powers ran deeper than most--his runes active with nothing more than a thought--the Clave had seen fit to reinstate him, and the blank horror in the eyes of any with a slant like Harrows had been delicious. 

"It's been more than five years." Magnus murmured, nudging Alec's thigh with his foot from where he sat ostensibly reading while Alec slogged through the paperwork required to continue his work in freeing Downworlders unjustly imprisoned. 

Alec looked up and over at Magnus, his heart giving a happy jig in his chest at how beautiful Magnus was, sitting in Alec's shirt, with his glamour down, a line of hickeys down his throat from the night before. Magnus had, at the less-than-subtle encouragement of Maryse and Catarina, booked himself a day off, and had spent the first half of the day alone in the apartment, before Alec brought the rest of his afternoon duties home with him, to get through in blissful companionship as quickly as possible so that he could move on to more enjoyable pastimes. 

"Do you still want to go home?" 

Alec considered, casting his gaze to the lights of Alicante outside. A voice in his head, that sounded like Robert Lightwood, dismissed the option of an out: Alec had come too far, still had too much he felt he had to do. It'd been seven years; and they'd come a very long way from where they'd been, but they still had far to go before Alec felt like he should be allowed to rest. 

But that was an old part of Alec. An echo of the man who'd thought he'd been better off dead, that night on the roof with an onslaught of demons that he'd only barely survived. The man who didn't have anything but his mission, that nebulous goal in the back of his mind that always seemed to change any time he got close to accomplishing it. 

A part of Alec that sounded like him when he was wrapped up in Magnus's magic, in Magnus's arms--a little bit selfish and a lot relieved--was the one that he voiced, "You are my home. But I'm ready for our next adventure. Whatever that is and wherever it takes us."


End file.
